Welcome to Bicentennial Summer: The Jersey Shore, 1976, the new narrative-history series from the New Jersey History Podcast.

Like last year's The Gilded Age: Jersey Shore, 1892, each episode begins with a work of historical fiction grounded in real places, real events, and real history. After the story concludes, we'll step out of the narrative and explore the historical details behind what you just heard, separating documented fact from creative interpretation.

Memorial Day Weekend, 1976. An eighteen-year-old wakes up in his family's Jersey Shore bungalow as another summer begins. His father is outside washing the Lincoln, his mother is polishing the paneling, his younger siblings are glued to Land of the Lost, and the kitchen is stocked with Butterfly Gold Corelle, Tang, and the promise of company stopping by after church.

As he spends the morning wandering through town, a breakfast sandwich, a Bicentennial quarter, a disco-versus-rock showdown at the basketball courts, and eventually a pair of six-packs of Schaefer beer become part of a day that seems ordinary at first. By day's end, he begins to realize that America's 200th birthday might mean something more than fireworks and flags.

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A young couple inherits a massive Victorian family house in Newark that has remained in the same Italian-American family since around 1900. As they begin settling into the house, they slowly realize certain rooms seem to carry emotional weight connected to generations of family history.

Part New Jersey history, part literary storytelling, this episode explores old Newark, the Palisades quarry industry, Italian immigration, Victorian mourning traditions, family continuity, and the strange feeling that some places remember the people who lived there.

And Part Two has yet to be written, so feel free to weigh in with some ideas.

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Perfect for listeners interested in:New Jersey history, Newark history, Italian-American history, Victorian houses, immigrant stories, family memory, the Palisades, gothic Americana, historical storytelling, and narrative podcasts.

This episode of The New Jersey History Podcast explores the centuries-old movement of people toward the Jersey Shore, tracing the continuity beneath modern Shore travel through Route 9 road trips, the historic Ocean Highway, Gilded Age train travel, Revolutionary War wagon routes, and Lenape movement toward the coast long before New Jersey existed. At its center is the idea that while the people, roads, and reasons changed, the seasonal pull toward the New Jersey Shore remained.

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In March 1776, months before the Declaration of Independence, future New Jersey governor William Livingston helped bring before Congress a call for a continental day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. The colonies were divided, frightened, uncertain, and standing at the edge of war.

This episode explores the forgotten religious atmosphere of Revolutionary America, the role of New Jersey in that moment, and the reality that public calls for national prayer and repentance are not modern inventions, but part of the country’s earliest political history.

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Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola isn’t a traditional folktale, but it reflects a way of life tied to Italian cultural traditions that continued in places like New Jersey.

In this episode, we look at how rituals—Sunday sauce, the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and family traditions—can stay the same from one generation to the next, while the understanding behind them can fade.

Through the story of Big Anthony, we examine what happens when ritual is separated from understanding—and how something meant to nourish can overflow into something else entirely.

This is a New Jersey story about immigration, Italian-American life, and the difference between repeating something and actually knowing why it matters.

This also serves as a segue into upcoming discussions of Italian-American traditions brought over to places like New Jersey.

In this episode, we blend history, folklore, and a touch of the paranormal. Sometimes you get involved in something that you can’t “unsee,” and it changes you forever. That’s what happens to a lovesick young lady and the son of a famous general.

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You know Paul Revere. Midnight ride. Two lanterns. The British are coming. But do you know what Paul Revere was doing in New Jersey a full year before that famous night? Or what happened to the horse the British stole from him? This episode of American history goes to places Longfellow never mentioned — from Revere’s 1774 trek through New Jersey to meet with colonial Committees of Correspondence in Trenton, to a postal rider named Israel Bissell who carried news of Lexington and Concord through New Jersey on his way to Philadelphia. And it ends with a novelty record from 1958 by an Italian-American singer from Lyndhurst, New Jersey, who gave Paul Revere’s forgotten horse a name: Bachagaloop. Paul Revere history, New Jersey history, and the midnight ride you thought you knew — this is the story nobody tells.

This episode doesn't shy away from the slurs, the discrimination, and the dehumanization Chinese immigrants faced — because that context is exactly what makes their resilience so remarkable.

In 1870, while anti-Chinese mobs were burning down Chinatowns in California, 68 Chinese men and boys were quietly transported by horse-drawn carriage in the dead of night to a small New Jersey town called Belleville — and changed East Coast history forever.

After the Foreign Miners' Tax pushed Chinese immigrants off the California gold fields, they pivoted into two industries that would define their presence in America: laundry and food. When a retired sea captain named James Hervey brought these workers east to run the largest commercial laundry in America, they didn't just take jobs — they built the first Chinese community on the entire East Coast, years before New York's Chinatown even existed.

Topics covered: Chinese immigration New Jersey, Belleville NJ history, first Chinese community East Coast, Passaic Steam Laundry, Chinese laundry history America, Foreign Miners' Tax California, Captain James Hervey, Chinese railroad workers, 1870 New Jersey history.

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What does a plastic-covered couch have to do with an Easter pie?

In this episode, we break down the story behind Pizza Gain (Pizza Rustica / Pizza Chiena) — a traditional Italian Easter dish that evolved into something much bigger in Italian-American culture.

Originally from Naples and southern Italy, Pizza Gain started as a practical, symbolic dish tied to Lent and Easter traditions. But when Italian immigrants came to America, something changed.

It didn’t just get bigger — it got better.

With access to more ingredients and higher-quality meats like prosciutto, soppressata, and fresh mozzarella, Pizza Gain became more than food. It became a statement — a reflection of success, identity, and pride.

From Sunday gravy loaded with meats, to the good china in the hutch, to the plastic-covered living room couch, this episode explores how food became a way to say:

👉 “Look what we have now.”

This is a story about Italian-American culture, immigration, food history, and the meaning behind tradition.

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In 1782, a small New Jersey shore town called Toms River was burned to the ground by Loyalist forces — and the chain of events that followed nearly derailed the peace negotiations ending the Revolutionary War. A privateer captain named Joshua Huddy was executed without a trial for a murder he didn't commit. A twenty-year-old British officer named Charles Asgill was condemned to die in retaliation — for an act he also had nothing to do with. And Queen Marie Antoinette personally intervened to save his life, only to face her own execution a decade later. This is the story of the Huddy Affair, the Asgill Affair, Philip White, William Franklin, and a forgotten corner of the Revolution that touched the court at Versailles.

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Battle of Toms River Re-enactment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUTBhrLzd1Q

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